The Hidden Politics the Artificial Intelligence Technology (Industry)
John Fraim
(3/6/2024)
Sunflower / Milt Jackson
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(To readers: I suggest you first go to the bottom of this post and read the “American Mind” article that inspired the below.)
Anyone who thinks that AI will not be programmed along politics is naive today. The cult of DEI affects everything in culture and AI is part of culture. Despite what the AI propagandists tell us. In all the distracting excitement of this new technology overtaking the world right now, the politics of AI is like a hands-off sacred topic. The AI community presents us with its dazzling new magic of AI. Culture is distracted so much by the dazzle they fail to see, or even give any thought to, that is, the politics of those controlling AI. Off to the side, directing the action.
It is naive to think that AI will not be controlled (at least in the immediate future) by politics. Now, it is far liberal politics. Perhaps it will change back (via cycles of culture) to conservative politics. AI is the magic of our times. That one magical piece of technology perhaps each generation. Perhaps invented by generations? In this magic, we are always distracted from considering the politics of AI. The below story is from an embedded observer at a far DEI Google while he worked there for a period.
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One of the first and most callouts today to what Marshall McLuhan would have called the invisible media environment that surrounds us (like water around fish) so much we never know of its presence. The dazzling technology of AI let’s itself be known today via the best ad and PR firms. The increasingly refining and evolving science of advertising and marketing. Getting better and better in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Harvard Business School Professor Shoshana Zuboff about this new marketing age in her mportant perspective on the world today. An advertising and marketing perspective where everyone gives up their identifies to unknown sources in order to communicate with others. When all information goes to huge central computers. That increasingly learn better ways of behavioral prediction. Is the learning biased to the original programmers, creators of the AI system?
The public attention is on the wonders of AI. We’re all like children to this AI phenomenon. A new perspective on the world. In some ways, we’re like children looking at AI as that present under the tree on those first Christmases. But the this attention on AI is quickly fading as this new medium moves into culture. We need to consider that the medium of AI is programmed by a world, national group of a particular political ideology or persuasion. This should make everyone reconsider how they view reality where technology firms can control most of this world. Not surprising since most of this new world has become digital.
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Somehow, it seems that a lot of the bad PR for AI has simply evaporated after a week or so. Some stories are not followed up on. Certainly some of the questions (more than answers) created from testimony of the leading tech firms in front of Congress. To me, AI had simply come across as too fast and too slick for my older mentality and pace. But it was the pace my children so I had to take AI more seriously.
It seemed to me that involved was a PR or identity brand problem/challenge for that huge brand called the AI industry. There’s been some bad publicity on AI not reported by media. A few bizarre instances related to AI escape now and then and usually we laugh at how silly it is.
But then, just as we don’t think of the politics of AI we also don’t think of the politics of the programmers of AI today.
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And why shouldn’t the great tech firms of today’s Silicon Valley spend much in PR promoting the start-up of a new industry. This is a good question for a journalist. What percentage of PR and Ad money goes into the creation of certain businesses, or, classes of businesses? I would estimate much money. Besides huge investments in start-up PR and advertising, the few top tech giants today seem to battle each other constantly to be the ruler of the newly emerging technology of AI.
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A question I have is whether early programming into an AI system can be overridden by a later program. A stupid question to those who know about this much more than I do. But still a question I have. I realized after I had written most of this down than it really came down to somewhat of a review of the article link at the bottom of this post.
Through huge new investments in AI. The future in AI that the three or four major players in Silicon Valley are staking their futures on AI or at least towards it. The world moves in the direction of AI these days.
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It is important that all Americans consider the politics of AI programming over the next five years. I encourage friends in both political parties today are. Toss in a number of independents. Stubborn baby boomers I think. Once DEI takes over Silicon Valley and the greatest tech firm in the world, one has to be aware of the politics of the creators of the current software and programs being fed into AI. The politics of a search engine like the recently failed one at Google. And then, ridiculed by the national press for a few days. People are calling for Google’s CEO to be fired. The failed search engine of Google that everyone has got a laugh at. The one that exposed their true motives so brilliantly well.
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It is so good we still have a few great investigative reporters like Mike Wacker. Being a whistle blower journalist and reporting from a type of foreign battlefield. Investigating the politics of something that has been operating for so long, unseen by anyone. Unquestioned by anyone. The thought of politics itself simply one that was never associated with the word AI.
Wacker’s short article in American Mind. One of the most key topics of modern journalism, I think. The politics of AI.
To point us into a “wake-up call” for us today. It is not the politics of a party. It is the politics to those programmers of AI – the rising non-Hollywood stars programming culture. By programming the new era of AI. This era, it seems to me, depends on the politics of a time. Under one presidential administration perhaps. And influencing AI politics one must always consider the deep state. Immune from the comings and goings of presidential administrations.
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The trick has been played so long and so successfully. In America of course. Nation that invented PR and advertising. Really, in many ways, the art of getting one’s attention in culture with all the other things vying for this attention.
But really, all this is the art of distraction. Distraction from what? Distraction from what’s truly important in our lives. Being dazzled by the things the advertising and marketing industry sell them. And the key products they sell a late-stage consumer culture? It’s a much wiser and cynical culture and tougher to sell to than in the golden years of television and just the three networks and mass consumption and communication in America.
Today’s generations are suspicious of attempts to sell them more and more things. The various cultures in society today are a cynical, changing consumer culture about the fakeness of many brands they are sold. The fakeness of reality itself after the pandemic changed the perspectives and worldviews and conceptions of reality for so many.
The two greatest distractions of American culture today are entertainment and sports, the great distractions that advertising and PR sell the populace. That is why these two groups are paid the greatest amounts of money.
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But AI systems (like the failed recent Google search engine) then the failure can be mocked in the public media as it was. Again, the major result of the failure exposed DEI like nothing ever has. Through what a search engine came up. So different than American culture. A black George Washington? The images the search engine came up with are laughable.
The last laugh, though, might be on Google, if they want to learn how to hide their programming better. Or perhaps, listen to what many employees of the over 100,000 at Google and change away from DEI? Or perhaps change their personnel policies? There are several ways Google could pursue AI after the public disgrace of the failure of their first AI search engine.
Wacker’s reporting below, comes from inside enemy territory, the belly of the beast as they say.
American Mind article.
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John has been observing Google for a number of years. His article “Electric Symbols” in the peer-reviewed online publication First Monday in June 2202, led to an invitation for a tour of Google by the tech firm’s head of PR.